Triggs’ in­jury tem­pers vic­tory

He ex­its in third af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing tin­gling in his pitch­ing hand

TORONTO » Andrew Triggs’ early de­par­ture fromthe game marred what was a hit pa­rade for the A’s.

The right-han­der had just gone 2-0 to Justin Smoak with a run­ner on and one out in the third in­ning when Jonathan Lu­croy quickly ran out for a mound visit. Man­ager Bob Melvin and trainer Nick Pa­paresta went out to the mound shortly af­ter, and af­ter a quick con­sul­ta­tion, Triggs was pulled from the game af­ter 42 pitches. His out­ing ended with him al­low­ing one run on one hit with two walks and a strike­out over 2 1/3 in­nings in a 10-5 A’s vic­tory.

Triggs was shak­ing his fore­arm as he walked back to the dugout and into the club­house. Af­ter the game, Triggs re­vealed he felt a tin­gling and shoot­ing sen­sa­tion from his right thumb to the mid­dle fin­ger. The feel­ing be­gan af­ter throw­ing a changeup to re­tire Yangervis So­larte on a ground­out to end the first in­ning and­was on and­off in the sec­ondin­ning. Af­ter the sen­sa­tion re­turned more fre­quently in the third, Triggs said he called on Lu­croy and the train­ing staff to let them know some­thing was wrong.

“It didn’t con­cern me all that much and then it was more fre­quent in the third when I walked (Josh) Don­ald­son and then got down 2- 0 to Smoak,” Triggs said. “That was enough forme to bring it to their at­ten­tion. You don’t want to come out be­fore you’ve given every­thing you’ve got, but that was enough forme to re­al­ize I needed to say some­thing.”

Triggs en­tered the night 3-1 with a 5.31 ERA. He had tied a sea­son-high six runs al­lowed in

his pre­vi­ous start against the Yan­kees on Satur­day. Triggs un­der­went Tommy John surgery in his se­nior year of high school 11 years ago and had not had any se­ri­ous arm in­juries recently.

Though tin­gling sen­sa­tions in the fin­gers are a com­mon symp­tom of UCL in­juries, which lead to Tommy John surgery, Triggs said his past ex­pe­ri­ence with that type of in­jury gives him hope that what he was feel­ing is not UCL-re­lated.

Man­ager Bob Melvin said Triggs will head to Oak­land for an MRI this week, and the club will wait to hear back be­fore de­cid­ing on mak­ing a ros­ter move. With starters Jharel Cot­ton and Paul Black­burn al­ready on the dis­abled list, along with re­liev­ers Ryan Buchter and Liam Hen­driks, the A’s pitch­ing depth is start­ing to wane. A long-term in­jury for Triggs would be a tough blow.

San­ti­ago Casilla came on in re­lief of Triggs and got Smoak and So­larte to fly out to end the third. Though the Blue Jays (2222) tacked on three runs against Casilla, his abil­ity to go two in­nings and help Melvin stay away from cer­tain mem­bers of the bullpen he wanted to give a night off left the man­ager pleased.

“Casilla was great. He’s not used to do­ing that,” Melvin said. “He’s prob­a­bly never been called on at that time in his whole career. He gave up a cou­ple of runs, but two-plus is just not stuff he’s ever done for us, and he con­tin­ues to pitch well for us. He’s re­ally turned him­self into quite a weapon.”

Casilla, along with Yus­meiro Petit, Ryan Dull, and Lou Triv­ino com­bined for 6 2/3 in­nings. While four runs were sur­ren­dered by the pitch­ers, they got some help from an ex­plo­sion of runs by the A’s lineup.

When Khris Davis, Matt Ol­son and Matt Chap­man are all click­ing, it can be a down­right fright­en­ing sce­nario for op­pos­ing pitch­ers. That­was the case on Thurs­day.

The A’s recorded 14 hits as Davis, Ol­son and Chap­man all home­red. The trio com­bined to go 8 for 12 with seven RBIs and two walks.

“When we’re swing­ing pretty good and just get­ting some con­tri­bu­tions from ev­ery­body, it can turn into 10 runs like it did tonight,” Melvin said.

Davis raised his av­er­age from .214 to .233 in one day by go­ing 4 for 4 as he also sin­gled three times. He was hit by a pitch in the sixth, reach­ing base five times in a game for the sec­ond time in his career.

“Usu­ally if he touches the ball three times in a game there’s a cou­ple of homers,” Melvin said. “Power hit­ters usu­ally aren’t mixing some sin­gles. His bat­ting prac­tice was re­ally good and shoot­ing some balls in the hole. He knows how to work on him­self when maybe he’s swing­ing and miss­ing too much.”

It was Chap­man’s third mul­ti­hit game in the past four days, ty­ing a ca­reer­high three hits on the night.

TOM SZCZERBOWSKI — GETTY IM­AGES

The A’s Matt Ol­son tracks his a three-run home run against Toronto in the fifth in­ning.